Experienced nurses are retiring at a rapid pace, and there aren’t enough new nursing graduates to replenish the workforce.

Experienced nurses are retiring at a rapid pace, and there aren’t enough new nursing graduates to replenish the workforce. At the same time, the nation's population is aging, requiring more care.

"It's really a catch 22 situation," said Robert Rosseter, spokesman for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, CNN Money reports.

However, schools are turning away thousands of qualified applicants as they struggle to expand class size and hire more teachers for nursing programs.

Nursing programs across the board are rejecting students in droves because of the lack of openings, according to CNN Money.

In 2017, nursing schools turned away more than 56,000 qualified applicants from undergraduate nursing programs. Going back a decade, nursing schools have annually rejected around 30,000 applicants, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

There are currently about 3 million nurses in the United States. The country will need to produce more than 1 million new registered nurses by 2022 to fulfill its health care needs, the American Nurses Association estimates.